Cradle
Before sleep tears.
A blood-stained vision :
White feathers from the wings of a lover’s back still cradled in her heart,
Morpheus rocking in a moaning whirl,
Spike in the forehead.
Herat, good-bye.
Morning spiders crawl up the peeling wallpaper,
In a downtown Guelph hotel,
Laying eggs in the creases.
I shall always miss you --
In a way you never understood.
Country twang of guitars and honky-tonk fiddles,
Live, or from a jukebox.
Pool cues and wine.
When the Scots first came here,
They mined the limestone,
Hauling it on their backs,
with sweat, spit, and livestock,
pulling blocks across the land atop wooden wagons.
Arriving with their own jigs and sorrow,
Black anger and ferocious tenacity,
Like a drug seeping into the vein of my arm, exposed
On the table spread for you to find the pulse,
Mixed with a line of cocaine,
Then, a Mojito and salsa.
Its cold here today,
But there is always music.
Music of cranes in migration.
Music of wandering drifters with beat up fire charred six strings,
Drifting angels with songs that know no limits.
I watch you pulling the bloody white feathers out,
Where you lay shivering on the floor,
Cradling ghosts, detached, dreaming,
Of the orphic cradle.
An arc-shaped harp being tuned.
Pulled taut in the corner --
Ever play a harp with a horse-hair bow?